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I haven’t worn a mask while playing hockey for years.
There’s a visor on my helmet. A mouthguard protecting my teeth. And a scar on my chin from the stitches needed to close the damage from an errant puck.
But on Thursday night, in accordance with Sect. 34(1) of order under the Public Health Act, I stepped onto the ice for the first game of a summer season of beer(less) league hockey wearing a mask designed to stop COVID, not vulcanized rubber.
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I’d like to blame a somewhat lethargic performance on that mask, which occasionally caused my visor to fog up and appeared to slow the passage of much-needed oxygen from nostrils to lungs. (The older the hockey player, the faster we are at finding excuses for our poor play.)
But the truth of the matter is I would have worn a Peter Puck costume if that’s what it took to get back on a hockey rink while in the third period of this pandemic.
Still, I have to wonder whether requiring masks on hockey rinks is masking a deeper problem in our public health response to a virus that is increasingly becoming a threat mainly to those who are unvaccinated.
Before I could get anywhere near the rink’s dressing room, I had to show proof I was double-dosed. Once our vaccinated squad took to the ice, the biggest threat we faced was not COVID, but a pulled groin or another errant puck. In other words, the mandatory mask section of the public health act was protecting those who had already taken steps to protect themselves.
Stepping back from the hockey rink and looking more broadly at a province where nearly 70 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated, we need to start asking who exactly the health orders are protecting and who’s actually following them.
We were told to get vaccinated because it meant we could back the lives we had before COVID. As more and more of us do what we were told, when will we pivot away from the masking and social distancing requirements? Or perhaps a better question: How much longer do the fully vaccinated have to face the same restrictions as those who refuse to get immunized?
The sooner we get some answers to those questions, the sooner we can start dealing with the reality of where we are now in the pandemic and those most at risk to what remains a deadly disease because of their refusal to roll up their sleeves.
I get that the rise of the delta variant could push this pandemic into overtime. I’m aware new research into its contagiousness might require us to play a defensive game a little longer. And to be clear, I’ll be wearing my mask when I step back on the ice next week.
But let’s also be clear that mask is no longer the key to keeping people from going to the hospital or dying because of COVID.
— Paul Samyn, Winnipeg Free Press editor
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